Erica Eppes
by craftygirl26
Summary: Erica Eppes, sister of Don and Charlie Eppes. But do they know it? What happens when she comes back into the picture after disappearing for 16 years, will they realize who she is. Will they find out what happened? P.S. First Fic. unsure whether i should continue, please comment
1. Chapter 1

_"So, you're the other one, hehe," Markus smiled slyly at Erica._  
_"What are you going to do!" Erica screamed. She fell silent as she saw him approaching, he bent down in front of her._  
_"Making you wish you were dead…"_  
Erica bolted up from the bed, and raced for her office. She needed to work, she knew it was the only way for her to forget that... Dream.  
As she approached the whiteboard covered walls, she glanced at the calendar, December 29th. She really hadn't needed to look. She had already knew the date, because every year for the past 16 years, on this day she got the…Dream.

"Erica, where are you?" Agent James Smith wandered through the house. He knew where to look, in order to find her, but he wished to give her a little time to prepare herself before he entered the office.  
"Office," he heard her shout from down the hall. He walked a little faster now, he had good news. He knew she was going to love him.  
"Hey, Erica. What are you up to?" He asked as he stared at the incomprehensible numbers and other symbols covering the whiteboards.  
"Not much," she turned around, and James saw the dark circles surrounding her eyes.  
"Oh, Erica! What's wrong?!"  
"It's back," she said plainly knowing he would know what she was talking about. "and why are you calling me Erica, isn't my name Elizabeth?"  
"Huh," he said taken aback at the thought that the dream had come back... again, and that she was able to move on so quickly. "Yeah, but not for long. You want to talk?"  
" You already know what happened, from the shot being picked up, to…"she stopped and drew in a deep breath. "You know what I mean."  
"Okay, if that what you want." he stated, resigned. She always did this, she never talked about it.  
"It's what I want. So, what the news?"  
He had realized that this would feel extremely inappropriate tell her this, today of all day, but he had to. "You're free." There it was out, he watched for her reaction.  
"Oh," Erica turned around and went back to the math.  
"Erica?" James realized this was going to take a minute to settle in. He heard a grunt, which sounded suspiciously like a huh. "We need to talk."  
"Why?"  
"We need to know what you want to do…"  
"Why?! You really expect me to believe I can just leave, that I can live in the real world, under my real name! Like NOTHING happened? It's been sixteen years, and… and your now telling me I can leave." Erica yelled at the top of her lungs, before collapsing into the chair thankfully situated directly behind her.  
" Yes I do!" realizing this was the exact opposite of how he hoped this would come out, he toned the level of his voice down. "Erica, last night, Markus Abbot, was shot in the head by the FBI, while attempting a bank robbery. You have no reason to continue in the Witness Protection Program. You can go back to real life, as you so graciously put it."  
"Wait, Really?"  
"Yes, really. Now can we talk about what you want to do. I can get you in almost any profession…" he was cut off by Erica.  
"Agent. That's what I want to be. A FBI agent. Can you do that?" she asked.  
"Yes, but" he was interrupted again.  
"But, what? I'm trained, and I want to keep what happened to me from happening to other people."  
" Okay, I'll see what I can do."

Three days later the two agent, James Smith and new agent Elizabeth West walked into the LA FBI field office. Erica was slightly confused about why she would need to remain under her alias, Elizabeth; She found out why when she stepped out of the elevator, and was introduced to her new boss.  
"Hello, may I help you?" her boss asked.  
"Yes, I am Agent James Smith, which indeed is my birth name, and this is Agent Elizabeth West." James gestured to Erica who was standing behind him, looking puzzled. James was clueless as to why, but realized when the agent standing before them introduced himself.  
" Nice to meet you," the agent looked at the starring eyes of Erica. "You must be my new agent, I'm Special Agent Don Eppes…"


	2. Chapter 2

"Nice to meet you," the agent looked at the starring eyes of Erica. "You must be my new agent; I'm Special Agent Don Eppes." His hand extended to Erica.

"N..n..nice to meet you too." she stuttered as recognition flicked across her face.

"Something wrong?" Eppes asked.

"No, I just have heard a lot about you." Cr*p, this was not supposed to happen.

"Oh, let me introduce you to my team." Erica and James trailed behind him as he headed for the conference room.

Eppes held the door open for Erica and James. Inside two male, sat looking over a pile of papers. In the corner of the room stood a young man in front of clear whiteboard, doing math.

The agents looked up as they entered.

"Hey Don."

"Guys, I'd like to introduce our new agent, Elizabeth West," he turned toward Erica and James. "Elizabeth, these are Agents Colby Granger, and David Sinclair. Here is a copy of our latest case if you'd like to read through it, for now you'll be partnered with Agent Granger." Erica released a breath she hadn't known she was holding when she heard that she wasn't going to be partnered with Eppes.

"Umm, who is that?" Erica said pointing to the young man in the corner. The young man turned around and instant recognition ran rampant across Erica's face.

"Charlie, can you join us?"

"Yeah, Don," Charlie walked over to them after setting down the whiteboard marker, he held out a hand to Erica. "Hi, I'm Professor Charles Eppes…" he trailed off. "Have I met you before, you seem familiar."

"Umm," Erica gulped, "I don't believe so, but maybe."

Erica turned to the rest of the group, "I believe I should introduce, my friend Agent James Smith."

The agent Eppes had referred to as Colby, leaned back in his chair softly chuckling. "James Smith, is that your real name?"

James replied "Yes, Eri… Elizabeth I'll come back later, can you manage?"

"Yeah, but could I speak to you really quickly… Outside,"

"Come on, let's walk to the elevator." Erica looked around the room, all the agents had gone back to their respective jobs.

Once in the hall…

"Did you know about this? Please tell me you did." she asked meekly.

"Honestly, no. I heard that Don was an Agent, but I did not know that Charlie consulted."

"Cr*p, this is going to be hard, I hardly know who I am in this alias."

"I can bring you your file to read later." They had arrived at the elevator.

"Thanks, see you later."

"Yeah, I'll be back around six to pick you up and take you to your apartment."

"Okay, sounds good, bye." She turned and headed back to the conference room.

Erica re-entered the conference room, and went and picked up a copy of the case file. She settled into one of the chairs in the far corner of the room. She started reading through, five minutes later she was done. The case was a kidnapping, a young 8 year old girl, grabbed off the street. She shuddered at the similarity to her own story. The one thing different was that they were able to get the girl back.

Looking over at the agents, she saw that they continued to look through the files. Erica stood up and walked over, "What are you doing?"

The agents introduced to her as David Sinclair, looked up. "Hmm, oh. We are looking through old files relating to the family of the victim."

"What is he doing? She motioned to the corner, where Charlie was scribbling across the whiteboard.

"He's trying to decode a set of numbers that was delivered in a letter to the family of the girl. We figured that it held the clue to where she is. The family already paid the ransom, but the kidnappers said they would provide only the information necessary to find the girl, but not the actual girl."

"Really! Can I see it?"

"What, the numbers, sure, but I doubt you can make any sense of it, here" He handed her a copy of the paper.

Erica sat down and looked the sheet over. Almost instantly she recognized the pattern, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, hitting speed dial #1.

"Smith,"

"James, I left my laptop in the car, can you bring it back? I need it right away."

"Sure, Erica, turning around now. I'll be there in about ten minutes."

"'kay, see you."

She looked up; the agents were staring at her. "What?"

"Just wondering what that was about."

Erica looked down at the paper, "not meaning to make Professor Eppes' work moot, but I can read this for you right now."

"Wait, WHAT?"

"I can read this; I came up with an algorithm to decode this stuff about ten years ago."

"You what?" this came from Charlie, who had heard her talking.

"Here, let me show you, this is the equation." she quickly jotted down the equation on the last blank whiteboard.

Ten minutes later…

"Wow, can you decode it right now?" Don asked, he had walked into the room just as Erica began explaining the equation.

"Not yet. I have a program on my computer that James, agent Smith, is bringing in."

"And I have arrived." James announced as he paraded in carrying the laptop bag over his shoulder.

"Good. Let me see the laptop." Erica reached strode over to James, and grabbed the bag out of his proffered hand. "Thank you."

"My pleasure." James replied in a voice which sounded as if he were her servant.

Sitting down at the table Erica reached in to the laptop bag and pulled out a computer, covered in an equation covered case.

A rather surprised "wow" came from the agents. Erica opened the laptop a signed in. She opened a section called "Houston" and opened up a program.

"You have the page scanned, right?" she asked to no one in particular.

"Yeah, let me get you a copy." the reply came from agent Granger.

"No need, I can get it." and as the agents hovered over her shoulder, she opened up a file called "Margaret" up came a list of FBI cases, both solved and unsolved, as well as current cases. "…And this is it," she announced opening up a document named "Eppes-221" above it was "Eppes-220". All the agents gathered behind Erica looked at the computer in amazement.

"How do you have access to all our case files? I thought they were all classified, and stored only in our system." Eppes asked.

_Sh*t I shouldn't have done that, thought Erica. _"My computer is hooked up to your server. And here is the decoded message."

All eyes turned to off of Erica and on to the computer.

_Hello Agents,_

_Here is the location of the girl._

52 riverside lane

_Ha-ha, not going to give you the rest_

_However you can see her in a video, by using the hidden IP address._

_Enjoy_

"Cr*p! Let's get that IP address found." Eppes said, his voice laden with anger.

"Got it! Pulling it up now." Erica announced.

"Elizabeth, how do you do this so fast?"

"It showed itself after a little info scrambling." Erica replied.

Again all eyes were on the screen as a live-streaming video began playing. Showing the young girl with her hands tied behind her back, gagged and blindfolded in a shed.

"Can we trace that, Elizabeth?"

"That's a little bit out of my specialty. Shouldn't we get some techs on it?"

"Yeah, Colby run this over to one of the techs."


End file.
